Post
by Marie B » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:23 pm
Thank you for the link, although it doesn't seem to include any information on a visit visa for the spouse of an EU Citizen. Fingers crossed that everyone working in the visa section agrees that if we are travelling together my husband only has to supply both our passports and marriage certificate.
Husband went to Greek Embassy on Friday and everyone on this forum was right - should definitely have booked a weekend in France first and applied to French Embassy instead.
He said it was awful - so much for their telephone appointment booking service - people were just wandering in off the street no problem, although as soon as he walked in two security guards grabbed him - Greeks can spot an Albanian a mile off. Turns out there was no real appointment times at all so he ended up hanging round for hours.
My husband speaks Greek which came in handy as half the staff wouldn't speak in English at all and thought it was funny to take the piss out of people while they were waiting, obviously thinking no-one could understand, although they soon shut up when my husband started translating to the waiting room.
Eventually he spoke to a very rude woman who said she could organise a visa for him to return to his 'own country', hilarious! He has an Albanian passport - no additional visas needed, and being the Greek Embassy what on earth did she think she could offer him? So he said he was off on holiday to Greece and she wanted exact dates for both trips, he somehow mixed up June and August and asked for the holiday in April and one in June. She said he couldn't have a schengan visa for all of the EU, just for Greece (?), and wanted to know if we were travelling through any other country on route. She also said he couldn't have a six month visa just one for the dates requested, when he asked why she just said 'no' repeatedly until he gave up asking and that was it.
They have kept hold of his passport and he has to collect it on the 15th! 12 days - that's longer than it took for him to get a Spouse Visa, god knows what it will have in it when he goes to collect and fingers crossed they don't lose it.
To be honest we both thought it would be bad after our visit to the Greek Embassy in Albania last year. We went and asked for an application form for a schengan visa at the front of the embassy and the security guards nearly died laughing. We were sent around the back and there were probably five hundred people there (plus burger and ice cream vans!). We eventually asked an embassy person for an application form and they cost equivalent of £20! We informed the man they are free as is the cost of the visa for the spouse of an EU citizen, and he just laughed again and walked off. We decided the Greek embassy in Albania was not somewhere my husband fancied leaving his passport especially as he had just got his spouse visa stuck in it.
We have decided to have a weekend in Paris in July and will use the schengan visa from that trip to visit Greece in August.